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And is thinking, Menzel informs us, to take post in the stony labyrinthic Pirna Country: such the advice an Excellency Broglio has given; French Excellency, now in Dresden; Marechal de Broglio's Son, and of little less explosive nature than his Father was. Bruhl and Polish Majesty, guessing that the hour is come, are infinitely interested. Interested, not flurried.
He proposed to hurl his Guards at their rear and cut them off from Bohemia. Crossing the Elbe at Königstein, he would recover the camp of Pirna, hold the plateau further west and intercept Schwarzenberg's retreat. For the success of this plan he needed a day's rest for his wearied Guards and the knowledge that Dresden could hold out for a short time.
The advanced posts of the prince of Anhault-Dessau at Pirna were attacked, on the tenth of August, by a body of hussars and other irregular troops of the Austrians; but the Prussians soon obliged them to retire, with the loss of several men and two pieces of cannon.
The central intrenched camps of Dresden and Pirna, together with the fortresses of Königstein above, and of Torgau below, the Saxon capital, gave great strategic advantages. The corps of St. Cyr at Königstein and those of Vandamme, Poniatowski, and Victor further to the east, watched the defiles leading from Bohemia.
Would not Dresden and his communications with France be left open to their blows? He decided to run this risk. He had 100,000 men among the Lusatian hills between Bautzen and Zittau. St. Cyr's corps was strongly posted at Pirna and the small fortress of Königstein, while his light troops watched the passes north of Teplitz and Karlsbad.
Their Officers, Pirna people, looking quietly on. A scandalous proceeding, thought everybody, friend or foe, especially thought Friedrich; whose indignation at this ruin of Charlottenburg came out in way of reprisal by and by.
From Pirna or Sonnenstein to Konigstein, as the crow flies, may be five miles east to west; but by Langen-Hennersdorf, and the elbow there, it will be ten: at Konigstein, moreover, Elbe makes an abrupt turn northward for a couple of miles, instead of westward as heretofore, turning abruptly westward again after that: so that the Saxon 'Camp' or Occupancy here, is an irregular Trapezium, with Pirna and Konigstein for vertices, and with area estimable as above, ploughable, a fair portion of it, and not without corn of its own.
For the present his plan was to hold the Bohemian passes south of Bautzen and Pirna, so as to hinder any invasion of Saxony, while he threw himself in great force on the Army of Silesia, now 95,000 strong, though he believed it to number only 50,000.
"Wehla and Brentano, readers perhaps remember them busy, from the Pirna side, at the late Siege of Dresden. Siege gloriously done, Wehla was ordered to Hoyerswerda, on the northwest frontier; Brentano to a different point in that neighborhood; where Brentano escaped ruin, and shall not be mentioned; but Wehla suddenly found it, and will require a word.
This Tielcke, it appears, was a common foot-soldier, one of those Pirna 14,000 made Prussian against their will; but Tielcke had a milkmaid for sweetheart in those regions, who, good soul, gave him her generous farewell, a suit of her clothes, perhaps a pair of her pails; and in that guise he walked out of bondage.
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